1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to access control in a mobile environment.
2. Background of the Related Art
A “mobile device” is any wireless client device, such as a cell phone, a pager, a personal digital assistant, a mobile computer with a smart phone client, or the like. A typical mobile device is a wireless access protocol (WAP)-enabled device that is capable of sending and receiving data to and from a connected network in a wireless manner. WAP supports numerous wireless networks, and it operates with many handheld device operating systems. Typically, WAP-enabled devices use graphical displays and can access the Internet (or other communication network) on so-called mini-or micro-browsers, which are web browsers with small file sizes that can accommodate the reduced memory constraints of handheld devices and the low-bandwidth constraints of a wireless networks. A typical mobile device is a cellular telephone that operates over GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), which is a data technology for GSM networks. In addition to a conventional voice communication, a given mobile device can communicate with another such device via many different types of message transfer techniques, including SMS (short message service), enhanced SMS (EMS), multi-media message (MMS), email WAP, paging, or other known wireless data formats. Mobile devices are being used as the client device for more and more “online” types of activities, such as browsing the Internet, checking e-mail, file download, and the like. Mobile device usage also is being extended to support more localized activity, such as charging for purchases of products or services (e.g., from a vending machine, a fuel pump, or the like), or as a client proximity device (e.g., to open a garage door, to access a physical premise or locked enclosure, or the like).